Israel is
ruled by an
upper class
ofZionistJews (it was the
Zionist movement that called for Jews to immigrate to
Palestine.) Zionist leaders lord it over ordinary people, both Arab and
Jewish.

Some may ask, "What class conflict inside
Israel?" Well, follow these links to read about it if you are skeptical.

In February, 2006, a
report in Haaretz
announced that the combined annual income of the 18 wealthiest families in
Israel was $50 billion, equivalent to 77% of Israel’s national budget, and 32%
of the country’s revenues. According to Israel’s Labor Party, at least seven of
these families are considered Prime Minister Olmert’s close friends.

"Israel’s growing population of retirees has
been reduced to a state of profound economic insecurity in recent years, as
self-styled economic reformers have hollowed out the Jewish state’s
time-honored system of care for the elderly. Pensions have been frozen.
Social security payments, known in Israel as national insurance, have been
relentlessly whittled away — cut by 35% in a single decade. Health care and
prescription drug coverage have been slashed, along with funds for senior
housing and assisted living. It’s part of a deliberate move by Jerusalem
policy-makers to modernize Israel’s economy, by which they mean to remodel
it along American lines. Determined to bury the socialist ethos of Israel’s
founders, successive governments since the mid-1980s have slashed income
supports and welfare payments even as they’ve privatized and deregulated
industries, opened capital markets to international competition and reduced
workers’ job security (they call it “liberalizing labor laws”). Over the
past three years, under the economic leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, the
reforms have been ramped up to a revolution."

The Forward explains the "meteoric rise
of the Pensioners' Party" in the April, 2006 election this way: "And then
there was the simple, glaring fact of poverty. Too many Israelis had reached
the point where their own personal security seemed more precarious than their
country’s."Read in the
Jewish News Weekly of Northern California about: "Poverty in Israel — Hunger
and homelessness surge in the Jewish state"Read how "Recent
measures taken by Israel’s government to undermine the welfare state have
harmed women first of all, both Arab and Jewish. Of the Jewish, many who in
the past had gained a foothold in the middle class find themselves shunted
to the margins of society. The income supplements they depended on have been
whisked out from under them. The same cuts have worsened the plight of Arab
women. Despite the fact
that both groups, indeed the lower classes in general on both the Arab and
Jewish sides, suffer from an erosion in living-standards – and often for
identical reasons – there is an utter lack of dialogue between them." But Israelis are resisting this capitalist attack
on their lives, in many different ways:Read Jenny Cohen-Khallas's description of "Penury and Hunger in Israel" and how
"vociferous segments of the public are demanding that governmental resources
be channeled to welfare and other domestic resources, rather than to
strengthening settlements beyond the green line."
Read about single mothers, the homeless
and the unemployed camping out in front of Israel's Finance Ministry and in
Tel Aviv: "The choice of place is no accident," says Israel Twito, 38, a
divorcee who is bringing up three daughters alone. "The contrast between our
miserable campsite and the neighbourhood’s luxury shops and apartment blocks
symbolises the ever-widening abyss between rich and poor."Is it any wonder, then, that one can read how
more people are leaving Israel than entering it, and how " Almost half of the
country's young people were thinking of leaving the country" because of
"dissatisfaction with the government, the education system, a lack of
confidence in the political ruling class and concern over the security
situation"?Read
about the way working class Israelis have been forced to engage in large
strikes to protect themselves, not from "the Arabs" but from their Jewish
ruling class:

On September 21, [2004] the Israeli General
Federation of Labour (Histadrut) held a general strike in protest against
the ongoing failure of the government to pay wages to local authorities’
employees. Some 400,000 public sector workers across 265 municipalities came
out, bringing the state to a halt. Flights, seaports, railways, post
offices, banks and the stock exchange were all shut down, whilst hospitals
and the fire service operated on an emergency footing. Schools, day-care
centres, kindergartens, and universities were also affected.

The strike also included the Israeli
Electrical Corporation, Mekorot National Water Company, oil refineries,
public works departments, and the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company. Border
crossings were closed, and all government offices including civilian
employees in the Israeli Defence Force and at the Negev Nuclear Research
Plant were on strike.

Calling the strike was forced upon
Histadrut by the depth of opposition and anger amongst workers. Histadrut’s
chief and Member of the Knesset Amir Peretz said, “I used to believe in the
prime minister, the Knesset, and the courts, yet when I realised there are
Israelis hungry for bread, I decided to act.”

“No one, not even the Prime Minister, has
the right to set any conditions whatsoever for payment of many months of
salaries owed to the workers,” Peretz noted. “The government is turning
wages into charity. Wages are not a favour, they are a legal obligation.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, and
Minister of Internal Affairs Avraham Poraz are not enforcing the law.
They’re turning Israel into a third world country.”